Missouri in Mazury

Why would anyone publish this book? This was the worst thing I've read since 50 Shades of Grey . And I didn't think it could get worse than that. I am so disappointed in this book and the fact that I spent my hard-earned money on this nonsense. The only thing that I'm pleased about is that I read it in Polish, so at least I got to practice reading Polish. Too bad it was shit. First of all, the summary of the book is extremely misleading. I thought I was reading a thriller, not another terribly-written romance. The description mentions that Emma doesn't live at Folgate Street 1 anymore, Jane does. The ladies are very similar when it comes to appearance and the fact that they're both looking for a new start in life. There are so many similarities, but what's the difference? Emma's not alive anymore, but Jane still is. Jane seems to be following in the same footsteps as Jane - meeting the same people, experiencing the same "terror" as the girl bef...

I read my first M.R. Carey book, The Girl With All The Gifts ,  about a year ago while pregnant. The storyline combined with pregnancy meant that I woke up screaming in the night, thinking there was someone standing over me. Needless to say, I loved that book. Since I was such a fan of that book, naturally I also wanted to try more - this time, I went for Fellside . I started this book without reading the summary; I just assumed I'd like it and it'd be along the same thread as the previously read book. Fellside  is not a continuation, but rather a whole new story. It also has a sci-fi/supernatural theme, but not the zombie-esque theme of Girl With All The Gifts . Fellside  follows Jess Moulson, who might spend the rest of her life in prison at Fellside. She is contacted by a little boy with a message for her. The book takes us along with her as she struggles to survive in the maximum security prison, and listen to the boy's message. I will most certainly read ...

Lessons from Bookstagram, part 1. I have an account on Instagram (visible on the side of this blog, of course!) and post pictures occasionally. Well, I post pictures more often than I post anything on this blog. Anyway. I always love looking at pictures of books and getting suggestions from those accounts on what books to read. There have been a few good finds via "Bookstagram" on what to read, but I often find that the trending books aren't really my style. This was one of those examples of books that aren't my style, but I realized that too late. The Royals Series, I learned, is not for me. However, because I have to finish a book once I start unless it's really not interesting... I finished it. Please - if you've read these books and liked them, explain to me why . Do the authors of these books know that the characters are terrible? Was that the goal? Or do they really think that these type of male characters, if they were real people, are att...

I read this book a few months ago, but am only getting to writing about it now for a variety of reasons. One being: work. I'll discuss the fantastic differences in everything maternity another time. The Song Rising  is the third book in the Bone Season series. Paige Mahoney is now the Underqueen, ruling over Scion London's underworld. She's struggling, due to the way she came into power, her past, and the introduction of the Senshield that means major trouble for the clairvoyants. I read The Song Rising  for two reasons: I had read the other books in the series and wanted to see what happens next. Everyone else was reading it. I'm a follower, I'll admit it. Leading is fun sometimes, but when ostensibly everyone in the world is reading the same book, then why not join in? To be honest, the first two books were good, but not great, and I liked them enough to keep reading. I'm one of those poor souls who must finish a book once its started, no ...

B is now 3.5 years old and is speaking more and more in English and in Polish (when he hears German, he responds in Polish). I would still say that English is his native language, but Polish is catching up. In addition to translating for us, he now also will sometimes speak Polish to us - oh no ! He sees that Tata and I understand and speak Polish to others, so he sees no problem with speaking it to us, but we're doing our best to respond in English.  ...Except last night during bath time, when it was just too funny.  He started asking in Poland how old we were, but using the English construction (jak = how-description, the question should actually be "ile masz lat", ile = how-number). After that, he just got confused a little. B: Jaki masz lat? Jak masz na imię? Tata: Mam na imię A. A ty, jak masz na imię? B: Trzynaście. Mama: How old are you? B: Big!

I enjoy learning languages, and I'm also good at it. I get frustrated when people hear me speak English and immediately assume that I can't speak Polish (or German). Or assume that their English is better than my Polish. With B, I don't speak Polish and I don't want him to speak it with me. He'll sometimes translate for me if someone is speaking Polish, which I'm okay with and think is funny (I know, I'm a hypocrite). However, I'm sometimes not sure if B occasionally speaks Polish to me because it's easier at the moment or if he's practicing (showing off to me that he can).... or if he knows my fear that he won't speak​ English like a native and is just trolling. Today, he turns to me: Patrzcie Leon! At least I can be happy in the fact that his Polish is improving. We both have a lot to learn, though!

Viva Warszawa - Polen für Fortgeschrittene (Viva Warsaw - Advanced Poland) is a book by Steffen Möller about Warsaw, the capital of Poland, and his love and admiration for the city. The author is German and has lived in Warsaw for years, appearing on television. I have no idea who he is, but apparently most Poles do and say I should watch  M jak Miłość (L like Love), which is some kind of soap opera. Sorry, I like your books, though. When I lived in Germany, one of my host families was originally from Poland and recommended I read  Viva Poloni a, which is also by this author. I did, and I very much enjoyed his perspective on Poland. His perspective is quite different from my own, as I've been connected to Poland for a much shorter time, and I also belong to a different generation.  Obviously this particular book caught my attention, because I'm also a foreigner in Poland. I lived in Warsaw for a year before moving on to Mazury and eventually Wrocław. I also ador...

I read this book in Polish, mainly because the cover is gorgeous. To be completely honest, if I had been presented with the English cover, I probably would not have read the book. The English language cover makes the book look like a cheesy romance novel, whereas the Polish one just looks much cooler; it looks more like a novel with a badass female lead, and less like a novel that's solely about the romantic aspect of her adventures.   I think it's the face that makes the difference. This is the story of Aladdin, but with a twist. Instead of the main character being the male thief, it's the female genie. In this version of the story, women are powerful. There's no princess who needs the thief to show her a "whole new world" with the help of a male genie who's just there for comic relief; instead, the princess is a powerful rebellious force with an army of strong women to back her up, and the female genie has a past that she's fighting hard to ov...

As you might've gathered from reading other posts, we are raising B and L to be bilingual. We've also tossed around the idea of adding yet another language, as I also speak German. So far we've still been hesitant, since it complicates things a bit: when would we speak English and when would we speak German? Wouldn't it confuse them more? Eh. Today we decided to just dive in a try it out, so I began speaking only German to B, using a lot of hand gestures. At one point: B: No! Me: Nein? B: ...ten. As he was leaving, I got a "tschüß", so I'd call it a good start.

Who knew having a baby would be so time consuming and would leave so little time for reading!? Ha ha ha. My adventure with Jasper Fforde's books started last year with The Eyre Affair (highly recommend!), and because my library doesn't have any further books in that series, I started on the Last Dragonslayer series . The Eye of Zoltar is the third book in that series that revolves around Jennifer Strange. She is an orphan who runs Kazam, an employment agency for magicians in a time when magic is weak and fading even more. In this book, the Mighty Shandar (the most powerful wizard ever) is back. He has a beef with Jennifer, who ruined the progress he'd made on a deal from long ago. In order to make amends, Jennifer must bring him the Eye of Zoltar. Unfortunately, the journey will be a very dangerous one into the Cambrian Empire, where their tour guide estimates their survival rate to be around 50%. If you haven't read other books by Jasper Fforde, read them....

I read this book, because everyone I know seemed to be going crazy about it. I borrowed the Polish/English version and would give a big thumbs up to the translator, who did a fantastic job.  As for my review of the original works, I wrote a poem in the style of the book to sum up my feelings on this one: if i write without capitalization and punctuation but add line breaks at random moments that don't add meaning to the actual poem did i just write a poem I enjoy poetry when it's well written, but I didn't like this book of poetry. I felt it was overrated and not original. There were definitely a few poems I liked, but it was disappointing to read essentially the same poem over and over - there were very few new ideas between each poem and also very few new ideas in the book as a whole. I was extremely disappointed in the quality of the poems themselves. I expect poems to be lyrical and to express a different idea - it may be along the sam...

Learning English, or any language, can be so funny. B: L got shot. M: L got *a* shot. B: Mama did it. Thank goodness we're not in an English-speaking country.

It's pretty apparent from the books I've read in the past that I'm a fan of the Daily Show . I was a huge fan of it when Jon Stewart hosted and, like most, I was a bit wary of the change - I had never heard of Trevor Noah before. His first show was awkward, but I kept watching and now am an even bigger fan of Trevor Noah as the host. If you quit watching after Jon Stewart left or if you're not so sure about watching: just go watch. I've read a lot of books-from-television this year. And this is another one of those. It's a completely different book from what I had expected, but Born a Crime by Trevor Noah is so very much worth the read. This book is a-ma-zing. I had expected (again, not really fully reading the book's summary before reading) a book similar to the memoirs that other comedians have written - a book that touches on the comedian's childhood, but moves quickly onto their career and experiences at work. Not this book, and that'...

My mom and I have this tradition: when we're together, we binge-watch episodes of The Bachelor or The Bachelorette. The most memorable season we watched together was, of course, Juan Pablo's. This time around, we watched Nick's season.  When we finished this season, we decided to also read this book, which had also been talked about a lot on Bachelor in Paradise . This book,  It's Not Okay was written by Andi Dorfman, who was one of the contestants on Juan Pablo's season, and was also later a Bachelorette. In all honesty, I have a hard time remembering which Bachelor/Bachelorette contestants are who, as they all seem about the same to me (think: Saturday Night Live 's parody). I had the hardest time remembering the difference between Andi and Caitlin, for example, but both struck me as being normal enough ladies, who were smart and successful (Andi's a lawyer) and interesting (Caitlin was hilarious).  I was so wrong about Andi. After reading this...

Continuing my vow to read as many Polish books as possible this year, I chose Sekundy do szczęścia  as my next adventure. I picked this one out because the reviews indicated that the book is written very straightforward - meaning, it'd be very easy for a non-native speaker to understand. It certainly was easy to understand in terms of processing the language, but not in the sense of understanding what the heck the main character was thinking. The premise of the story is that one single decision can change your life. The introduction has a quote that three seconds (the time it'd take to make a decision) can make or break you. For the main character, Katarzyna, it wasn't only that one decision that changed her life, though, it was also subsequent decisions she made afterwards, such as sticking with an abuser. I agree that one decision can change your life, but the decisions afterwards, once you realize the initial decision was a mistake, also have an impact. The story ...

We are raising our kids bilingual. That means they're a bit behind in speaking in each separate language, but they've got two languages more or less under their belt by three, so that's okay. It also leads to interesting conversations. We had been talking about playing "got your nose," except with butts. P: Złapałeś taty pupę? [Did you get Tata's butt? "Pupa" (poo-pa) means butt.] B was really confused, so she asked again. B: [stops to examine his shoes] No poop!

I made a goal to read most, of not all, books in Polish for the rest of the year. No matter how slow it goes. This was my first one finished. The author is also known as Kali, a Polish rapper. I have a love-hate relationship with this book. I mostly hated it, because I think it could've been so much better - the description sounded interesting - but it really let me down. Here's the description, roughly translated: "An intricate criminal plot, set in the dark atmosphere of the Silesian City of Sin's dirty streets as a thorough sociological novel of manners on existence of young people in Poland. How thin is the line that divides the good from the bad? When does a man turn into a beast? Is there is still such a thing as unconditional love? Told from the point of view of the main character, nicknamed Krime, in a daring, brutally real novel". No, that's not what it is at all and none of those questions were answered. This is a story about a gan...

This book was on a list for the Tournament of Books and it seemed like a promising dystopian novel. The author herself calls it A Tale of Two Cities retold. Frankly, this book falls way short of those promises. New York is divided between Light and Dark. Lucie was born in the Dark, but with the help of her aunt, she escaped to the Light. This high school student now is a celebrity with a rich and famous boyfriend. But, that innocent-seeming boyfriend has secrets also! The story follows the boy from the Light, the boy from the Dark, and Lucie, who is a mix of both, through a world of magic and mayhem. But, wait, where did this magic come from? The book explains that it just appeared and the whole world was changed . Okay, that's an easy explanation. The story in general was interesting if you could overlook the flaws. Lucie always knew what she was doing, but then was always surprised to find that she was actually totally wrong. Surprise! By the way - I fel...

A private plane crashes into the ocean, leaving two survivors. Aaaaaaand I'm never flying again. My dad recommended this book to me, but warned me that my fear of flying might interfere. It did. But that's not to say that this isn't a well-written and overall awesome book. It has everything I desire in a book: mystery, suspense, drama, gossip, conflict, etc. I could've gone without the weak women and douchebags, but that's life. The general plot is ripped from recent headlines (as Hollywood would say, based on a true story!). The book, however, goes into more detail, taking the reader through the victims' lives, the present, the investigation, until we find out what happened. Rating: 5/5 Pages: 392 Borrowed from: Library Recenzja powstała w ramach wyzwania  Wypożyczone .

I'm a big fan of opera, so after reading the book's description, I was very interested. The book is this: Lilliet Berne is a famous opera in Paris, but she has a hidden past that only four people know about. An original role is presented to her that turns out to be based on her hidden past. The plot of the story is Lilliet going through her past - from a child in America to a hippodrome rider to a courtesan to a maid to a singer - to figure out who's told her secrets. The one big thing that bothered me about this book: all throughout, she was very clever recreating herself and finding the necessary connections to keep herself alive and safe. Except at the end - suddenly she becomes totally clueless. I also have basically no knowledge of France and French, so the references were sometimes lost on me. The big gossip that I am, I loved the intrigue and drama that made up Lilliet's life, though many parts were just sad. The text is a bit dense and har...

As a language-obsessed person, I want B to also learn different languages. Since his parents are natives of two different languages, of course he's learned both (English and Polish) so that - most importantly - he can communicate with his grandparents and relatives. I speak to him in English even when we are out and about. Especially at playgrounds, this always gets the same response. 1. Ambitious child. This one is my favorite response, because it's usually so random. Kids will recognize that I'm speaking English and will blurt out the first words that come to mind. The best was when a girl started singing Rain, Rain Go Away. 2. Staring. Usually this is from a child, who hears that I'm not speaking Polish and may mention that to a friend or parent. But usually it's just staring. Sometimes it's an adult who stated, but then it usually leads to the next point. 3. Ambitious parent The parent recognizes that I'm speaking English and wants their kid to lis...

I have to say first that this book wasn't what I was anticipating. I was expecting something more along the lines of Tina Fey's  Bossypants . But that's my fault for seeing something with The Daily Show in the title and immediately going for it, rather than reading the full title and summary. Anyhoo! The Daily Show: An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests by Chris Smith is an entertaining tale of the history of the show from the point of view of those involved. I only started watching the show when I was in high school (after 9/11), so the early history was completely new to me. This was an amusing and interesting read - and especially fun when read on the voice of each contributor. I would've loved an accompanying video to watch the segments referenced in the book, but that's also basically why YouTube was invented. Rating: 3.5/5 Pages: 480 Borrowed from: Library Recenzja powstała w ramach wyzwania  WyPożyc...

This one took forever - both because it's super long and because a newborn is keeping me super busy. Of course I have to mention first my reason for reading this book: I am a follower! I've listened to the musical's soundtrack. I've read the hype surrounding the musical. And I got really curious about what biography (usually not that fascinating) could've been so good as to lead to a super popular hip hop musical. Alexander Hamilton is a biography of - obviously - Alexander Hamilton, a Founding Father I honestly don't know much about. I don't remember too many details from all my American history courses, so this was also a nice refresher on the entire American Revolution time period as well. Fascinating for me as someone currently living in a foreign country is that Hamilton was also an immigrant to America, but he fought for her independence and was one of the most memorable in our history books. One of the quotes early on in the book that I foun...